RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d THE LIBRARY 181 BREDON, Juliet. Sir Robert Hart: the romance of a great career, told by his niece. London, Hutchinson, 1909. BUCK, Peter H. Explorers of the Pacific: European and American discoveries in Polynesia, by Te Rangi Hiroa (Peter H. Buck). Honolulu, Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1953. BUSHELL, Stephen W. Chinese art. 2nd ed. London, H.M.S.O., 1909 reprinted 1924. (Victoria and Albert Museum handbooks) 2 vols. CAHILL, James. Chinese painting. [Lausanne] Skira, 1960. CARL, Katharine A. With the Empress Dowager. New York, Century, 1905. CARNÉ, Louis de. Travels in Indo-China and the Chinese Empire: with a notice of the author by the Count de Carné. Translated from the French. London, Chapman and Hall, 1872. CHAI, Fei, and others. Indigo prints of China. Peking, Foreign Languages Press, 1956. CHENG, J. C. Chinese sources for the Taiping Rebellion, 1850-1864. Hong Kong, University Press, 1963. CHU, Hsi (AO Kia-li (†): livre des rites domestiques chinois de Tchou-hi, traduit pour la première fois avec commentaires by C. de Harlez. Paris, Leroux, 1889. CLAUDEL, Paul. Chine. Photographies d'Hélène Hoppenot. [Genève] Skira, 1946. CLAVELL, James. Tai-pan: a novel of Hong Kong. London, Michael Joseph, 1966. COATES, Austin. Prelude to Hongkong. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1979 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938 244 ORDINARY LOCAL MEMBERS DE BURE, Mrs. Ursula, 550 Victoria Road, Block 29, Floor 30, HONG KONG. DE SILVA, Ms. Minette, Dept. of Architecture, University of Hong Kong, HONG KONG. DER, The Rev. E. B., Holy Trinity Church, 135 Ma Tau Chung Road, KOWLOON. DIAMOND, Mr. A. L., Public Records Office of Hong Kong, 2 Murray Road, HONG KONG. DOHERTY, Ms. Kathleen Rose, 11 Coombe Road, Flat 1A, HONG KONG. DOLFIN, Mr. John, III, 155 Argyle Street, KOWLOON. DRAKEFORD, Mr. Louis S., 124 Miles Clearwater Bay Road, KOWLOON. DYER, Mrs. C. E., 233 Prince's Building, HONG KONG. ELSOM, Mr. Graham, J. B., G.P.O. Box 11508, HONG KONG. EVANS, Prof. D. M. E., School of Law, University of Hong Kong, HONG KONG. EVANS, Mr. C. J., Flat 9. 8 Mansfield Road, The Peak, HONG KONG. FABRY, Mr. K. G., Rural Retreat, Taipo Kau, NEW TERRITORIES. FABRY, Mrs. R. G., Rural Retreat, Taipo Kau, NEW TERRITORIES. FAN, Mr. Jack F. S., 1-25 Shu Kuk Street, May Lun Apartment 14/F, North Point, HONG KONG FITZPATRICK, Mr. John, c/o Jardine Matheson & Co. Ltd. World Trade Centre, 30/F, Causeway Bay, HONG KONG. FORSYTH, Mr. A. H., c/o Stevenson & Co., 821 Central Building, 3 Pedder Street, HONG KONG FORSYTH, Mr. James J., Flat 102, 80 Macdonnell Road, HONG KONG. GAILEY, Mr. H. G., 81 Mt. Nicholson Gap, HONG KONG GAILEY, Mrs. Norah, 81 Mt. Nicholson Gap, HONG KONG. GAMLEN, Mr. Richard, 62 A-D Robinson Road, 19th Floor, Flat B, HONG KONG. GARCIA, Mr. Arthur, Victoria District Court, HONG KONG. GARRETT, Mrs. Valery M., 19 Vivian Court, 20 Mount Kellett Road, HONG KONG. GATELY, Major Charles, c/o Environment Branch, Colonial Secretariat, Lower Albert Road, HONG KONG. GHOSE, Mrs. Rajeshwari, St. Paul's Convent School, Causeway Bay, HONG KONG. GIBB, Mr. Hugh, c/o Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corp., P.O. Box 64, HONG KONG. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1981 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m CHAN, Mrs Amy CHAN, Mr Sui-Jeung CHAN, Mrs Teresa CHAPMAN, Mr V.F.D. CHAU, Mr David H.S. CHEETHAM, Mrs J.A. CHEN, Mr S.H. CHERN, Dr K.S. CHEUNG, Mr Oswald CHIAO, Dr Chien CHILVERS, Mrs Anna E.S. CHISM, Mr Michael CHIU, Mrs Carol C. CHRISTOFIS, Mr P. CHRISTOFIS, Mrs L.E.R. CHU, Mr Lee CHUA, Miss Fi Lan CLARKE, Mrs Judith CLIMAS, Mr D. John COCHRANE, Mrs Valerie COLLINS, Mr Alan J. COOPER, Mr Roy COURTAULD, Mrs Caroline CRABBE, Mr Peter I. CRAIG, Mrs Peggy CRISSWELL, Dr Coline N. CROSS, Mr Niels T. CUMINE, Mr E. CUNNINGHAM, Miss Margaret DAVIES, Mrs L.R. DAVIES, Mrs Mona DAVIES, Mr S.N.G. DAVIS, Mr Donald V. DAWE, Mr Jock DAWSON, Prof. John L.M. DE BURE, Mrs Ursula DEPTFORD, Mr David DER, The Rev. E.B. DIAMOND, Mr A.I. DOLFIN, Mr John III DRAKEFORD, Mr Louis S. DYER, Mrs C.E. ECCLES, Mr Jeremy R. ELSOM, Mr Graham J.B. EVANS, Mr Clive Joseph EVANS, Prof. Daffydd M.E. FABRY, Mr R.G. FABRY, Mrs R.G. FAN, Mr Jack F.S. FAURE, Dr David FERGUSON, Mrs Carolynn L. FITZPATRICK, Mr J. FORBES, Miss Janet E. FORSYTH, Mr A.H. FORSYTH, James J. GAILEY, Mr H.G. GAILEY, Mrs Norah GAMLEN, Mr Richard GARCIA, The Hon. Mr Justice GARRETT Mrs Valery M. GATELY, Major Charles GHOSE, Mrs Rajeshwari GIBB, Mr Hugh GIBBONS, Mr John P. GOLDSTEIN, Mr A.L. GRANT, Prof. Charles J. GRAY, Mr Peter H. GRIFFITH, Mr Rodney O. GROVES, Prof. Murray C. GUILLAUME, Baron P. de HAFFNER, Mr Christopher HAHN, Mr Werner HAIGH, Mr D.F. HALL, Mr Christopher H. HALLIDAY, Mr Peter E. HALPERIN, Mr David R. HAMER-HUNT, Mr & Mrs H.D. HAMILTON, Mr Alexander HAMMOND, Mrs Jennifer Ho, Dr & Mrs Hung Chiu HOCHSTADTER, Dr Walter HODGE, Prof. Peter HODGES, Mr Ronald HODGES, Mrs Sylvia HODGKISS, Dr. I. John HOLLEDGE, Mr Simon HOLMES, Miss Jeanette E. HORSTMANN, Mrs Charlotte HOTUNG, Mr Eric E. HUGHES, Ms. Anne HUNT, Mrs Jillian M.C. HYSLOP, Mr John S. JEFFERY, Mr Malcolm J. JOHNSON, Mr & Mrs P.K. JONES, Mr Gordon W.E. KEMP, Dr Derek R. KHAN, Dr Latiffa KHAN, Miss Sherifa 213 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 28 NOTES Virgile Pinot, La Chine et la formation de l'esprit philosophique en France, 1640-1740 (Paris, 1932). 1 From Diderot's Encyclopédie. English translation from A. Reichwein, China and Europe, Intellectual and Artistic Contacts in the Eighteenth Century (Kegan Paul, Trench, Turbner & Co., London, 1925), p.92. Reichwein offers the best comprehensive treatment of China at the Age of Enlightenment, together with L. Maverick (see note 10). 3 Pierre Poivre, Voyages d'un Philosophe (English translation by Reichwein, loc. cit.). François Quesnay, Le Despotisme de la Chine (Paris, 1767). His friends had dubbed him 'the Confucius of Europe'. $ Lo Hui-min, The Tradition and Prototype of the China-watcher, 1976 G.E. Morrison lecture (Australian National University, Canberra, 1978), p. 9. 7 Louis Lecomte, Nouveaux mémoires sur l'état présent de la Chine (Paris, 1969). Du Halde, Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique et physique de l'Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise (Paris, 1735). $ Hugh Honour, Chinoiseries, the Vision of Cathay (John Murray, London, 1961). In 1951, at the Lycée de Chartres where I was teaching history, the bicentenary of Diderot's Encyclopedia was celebrated at the initiative of left-wing teachers who were keen to stress the connection between the Encyclopedia and French Revolutionary traditions. I gave a public lecture: 'China and the Encyclopedists', of which the present Morrison Lecture might be considered the direct descendant. 10 Lewis A. Maverick, China, a Model for Europe (Paul Anderson Company, San Antonio, Texas, 1946). || From Les Fleurs du Mal (my translation). 12 Evariste Regis Huc, L'Empire chinois (Paris, 1854). For a more severe evaluation of Huc, see Simon Leys, The Burning Forest (New York, 1986), pp. 47-94 ("Peregrinations and perplexities of Pere Huc'). 13 Eugene Simon, La Cité chinoise (Paris, 1885). 14 Paul Claudel, Connaissance de l'Est (Mercure de France, Paris, 1908). 15 The novel by Jules Verne, Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine (1879), is quite unique in its concern for the politics of nineteenth-century China. The hero, Kin Fo, is torn between his fascination with modern technology and his loyalty to his teacher Wong, who is an ex-Taiping leader. It is to my knowledge the only appearance of the Taiping rebellion in French literature. 16 V. Hugo, Lettre au Capitaine Butler, Hauteville House, 25 November 1861 (my translation). 17 Charles Bettelheim, Cultural Revolution and Industrial Organisation in China: Changes in Management and the Division of Labor, trans. by Alfred Ehrenfeld (Monthly Review Press, New York, 1974). See also China Since Mao, by Neil G. Burton and Charles Bettelheim (Monthly Review Press, New York, 1978). 18 Claude Roy, Clés pour la Chine (Paris, 1954); Etiemble, Le Nouveau singe-pèlerin (Paris, 1957); Philippe Sollers, Tel quel (a literary magazine edited by... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g Colonel Mosby had been sent to Hong Kong by the United States State Department to investigate and eradicate reputed abuses that had arisen in the affairs of the Consulate. His report to Washington was published as a pamphlet. The report claimed that Mr Smith had been instrumental in the perpetration of great frauds on the United States Government. The court found Consul Mosby guilty of slander. Before sentence, Mosby spoke in his own defence. "It has been proved that when I came here Peter Smith was what was known as 'the shipping master' at the American Consulate. He had a desk and a clerk, and he had a monopoly of the shipping business. He was a powerful man at that time, so far as American shipmasters and sailors were concerned” (CM 10, 11 Jan. 1881). Upon losing the lucrative business of shipping master for the American Consulate, Peter Smith applied for a spirit licence for a house on Queen's Road West which he wished to name the City of Hamburg. The Superintendent of Police questioned whether a boarding house keeper should also operate a tavern. However, the licence was granted, but only for a year and with the caution that if there were any complaints regarding its conduct, the spirit licence would not be renewed (CM 4 Jan. 1881). Smith did not live long to enjoy his accumulated wealth. He died in December 1882, aged forty-seven. Other taverns which would have attracted the German sailor on shore were the City of Hamburg 1861 to 1976, Bremen Tavern 1866, City of Bremen 1866 to 1867 - when the name was changed to Scandinavian Tavern, the Prussian Eagle 1870, and the Hamburg Tavern 1861 to 1878. Several of the proprietors of these establishments followed a pattern set by Peter Smith in marrying women from Macao families. William Gardner, who was born at Strassburgh in 1834, married, in 1863, Cecilia Libina de Jesus Correa. Her sister Melena Rita Correa married William von den Busche in 1864. Both Gardner and von den Busche were associated with the Hamburg Tavern. John Juster took over the Hamburg Tavern from William Gardner in 1871. He had been born in Hanover in 1834 and married in Hong Kong, in 1875, Maria Antonia Botelho, a native of Macao. Louis Kuchmann held the licence for the Land We Live In for twenty years. In 1886 the licence was transferred to Tevel Silbermann, probably a German Jew. Kuchmann had one daughter, possibly by a Chinese wife. She married in 1885 Carl Holm, captain of a German schooner. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 196 Cambridge History of China, edited by Denis Twitchett et al, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978+ Campbell, Charles S. Special Business Interests and the Open Door Policy, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951 Carlson, Evans Fordyce. Twin Stars of China, the Behind the Scenes Story of China's Valiant Struggle for Existence by a US Marine Who Lived and Moved with the People, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1940 Carr, Henry. Riding the Tiger: An American Newspaper Man in the Orient, Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1934 Chang, Sul-jeung. The Jews in Kaifeng. Reflections on Sino-Judaic History, Monographs of the Jewish Historical Society of Hong Kong, vol. II, Hong Kong: Jewish Chronicle, 1986. Chardin, Pacifique Marie. Les Missions Franciscaines en Chine, Paris: Auguste Picard, 1915 Ch'en, Yuan. Western and Central Asians in China Under the Mongols, translated from the Chinese and annotated by Ch'en Hsing-hai and L. Carrington Goodrich, Los Angeles: Monumenta Serica, 1966 Chester, Ruth (Professor of Chemistry and Associate Dean of Ginling College), 'Women in Wartime China', broadcast May 1941 from Chengtu, in United China Relief Series Inc. Chesterton, Ada Elizabeth (Jones). Young China and New Japan, Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1933 China in the Sixteenth Century, the Journal of Matthew Ricci 1583-1610 translated by Louis J. Gallagher, SJ, New York: Random House, 1953 China Miscellany, pamphlets and reprints, Shanghai and Hong Kong, 1864-1948 Chinese Repository, Macao and Canton, 1832-1851 Chinese Travellers, the. Containing a Geographical, Commercial and Political History of China, etc. collected from Du Halde, Le Comte, and other modern travellers, second edition, London: printed for E. and C. Dilly, 1772 Chitty, J.R. Things Seen in China, London: Seeley, Service, 1912 Christmas, Margaret C.S. Adventurous Pursuits: Americans and the China Trade 1784-1844, Washington, DC: National Gallery, 1984 Clark, Robert Sterling and Arthur de C. Sowerby. Through Shen-Kan: The Account of the Clark Expedition in Northern China, London: T.F. Unwin, 1912 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 134 have therefore added it here for the record. The Sowerbys were an old family of Saxon stock that can be traced back to the time of Edward the Confessor, and possibly earlier to the first kings of Kent in the fifth century AD. Arthur de Carle Sowerby was the great grandson of James Sowerby, who died in 1822, the botanist who wrote English Botany and was one of the founder members of the Geological Society. His son in turn continued his work and helped organise the Royal Botanic Society and Gardens in Regent's Park. On his mother's side Arthur was descended from Pierre Séguier, the Chancellor of France in the reign of Louis XIII; he was also the great grandson of Anthony Stuart, the miniature and portrait painter of the early Victorian period. Arthur's uncle was part-founder and first Keeper of the National Gallery of Portraits in Trafalgar Square. At the end of his schooling he began his training to be an artist but soon left it for that of a scientist, working for his BSc. at Bristol. He returned to China having dropped out of College and after his arrival back in China he was appointed in 1906 in the double capacity of lecturer and curator on the staff of the Anglo-Chinese College in Tientsin. He served in France during World War 1 as Technical Officer in the Chinese Labour Corps, and on his return to China made his headquarters in Shanghai where he remained until the end of the Second World War. He developed an interest in Chinese Art and was impressed by the accuracy of ancient Chinese craftsmen in modelling pottery animals for the tomb, an accuracy that enabled him as a naturalist to identify the breeds of various domestic animals in use in ancient China. He wrote a series of articles for the China Journal on Birds in Chinese Art; the Owl in Chinese Art; The Flora in Chinese Art; Rocks, Mountains and Water in Chinese Art; Animals in Chinese Art; as well as Animals in the Myths, Legends and Fairy Tales of China. His interest in craftsmanship also led him to write a series of articles on Chinese arts and crafts, including four papers on the Chinese ivory industry. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 1861) is both a tour de force and riveting, to boot. Ch'ëa was the keeper of a temple at Poklo. He was visited in 1856 by two colporteurs from Hong Kong who left him with a bible. On reading it, he was almost immediately converted to Christianity and was later baptised in Hong Kong becoming, essentially, a disciple of James Legge. He returned to Poklo where he pursued his faith with great, if not excessive, zeal, becoming an object of suspicion and hatred in many quarters. In October 1861 he was seized by a local vigilante squad, tortured, ordered to renounce his faith - which he refused to do - and was ultimately beheaded. Stephen Selby's interesting account of archery in China from the pre-Shang period to the end of the 19th century mirrors the excellent address that he recently gave to the Society. The indefatigable Keith Stevens takes us on a voyage of discovery into the history of Zhenjiang. As always the illustrations are wonderful. And Dan Waters reminisces about Hong Kong in the post-War years. There are a total of 18 NOTES AND QUERIES on a wide variety of subjects. Paul Bolding gives us some insights into the life of the intrepid Belgium aviator, Louis de San - who he ultimately met in 1988 with some interesting photographs. There is an amusing 1905 Christmas card from Arnold Graham - that great benefactor of the HKBRAS Library - and an account of the Library by our Hon. Librarian, Julia Chan. Peter Hansell discusses the famous clock maker Douglas Lapraik. Paul Harrison writes penetratingly on the highly unusual subject of restoring artefacts for display in Hong Kong's museums. Bob Horsnell continues his highly interesting pieces on old military installations. David Mahoney provides further insights into the Chinese Labour Corps in France during World War I. Martin Merz adds another follow up to Solomon's Bard's TEA AND OPIUM advising that Chinese and Indian teas are, essentially, the same (we live and learn!). Robert Nield's beautiful photographs of Bhutan which I messed up in Volume 41 are now reproduced in all their glory. I'll leave you to read The wrestling princes by Keith Stevens (a little suspense will do no harm). Peter Stuckey and Chris Bailey take us to St. John's (Shangchuan) Island to the southwest of Hong Kong where St. Francis Xavier died in 1552 (not, as I originally thought when skimming through the article, iv ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 NOTES AND QUERIES Gliding: How Louis de San beat the Asian duration and altitude records in Chungking, China, in 1940, from the Belgian journal Aviation, Volume 2, Number 14, March 1946, translation by Paul Bolding 345 Paul Bolding - More on Louis de San 357 Arnold Graham's Shanghai Christmas card, 1905 Julia Chan - The Library of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 361 373 James Hayes - Afterthoughts on South China Village Culture, Oxford University Press, 2001 385 393 became Kalekie drzewo Peter Hansell - The colourful Douglas Lapraik (1818-1869) Paul Harrison - Introducing the Conservation Section of the Hong Kong Government Peter Halliday - Adventures in publishing: How The Crippled Tree 377 381 ... Robert Horsnell - A note on the Japanese gun emplacement at Tathong Point, Tung Lung Chau......... 399 David Mahoney - More on THE CHINESE LABOUR CORPS IN FRANCE, 1917-1921: A new discovery .... 405 David Mahoney - Yet more on THE CHINESE LABOUR CORPS IN FRANCE, 1917-1921 .... 411 Martin Merz - Yet more on TEA AND OPIUM 413 February 2002... Robert Nield - Photographs from the HKBRAS' visit to Bhutan, Keith Stevens - The wrestling princes 417 431 xiv ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 345 NOTES AND QUERIES FROM THE BELGIAN JOURNAL AVIATION, VOLUME 2, NUMBER 14, MARCH 1946 ©TRANSLATION BY PAUL BOLDING Gliding: How Louis de San beat the Asian duration and altitude records in Chungking, China, in 1940 In 1939, Louis de San set off for China to serve as a diplomat. A keen glider pilot, he was eager to taste the eastern thermal currents. When he set off in a Chinese glider, towed by a military plane, it was to be for a flight of more than four hours and set an Asian record. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he managed to flee Hong Kong as the bombs fell, and to reach South Africa. There he joined the RAF and passed his examinations as an aeroplane pilot. Lieutenant de San then went to Congo, where he was based until the end of hostilities and undertook various missions and operations in Oxford and SV4 planes. This is his account of how he set the record in China: It was 1940. For a year I had been in Chungking, wartime capital of the Chinese government. There was bombing day and night, crushing heat of more than 40 degrees, tension, loneliness... There were few distractions: one was being a spectator in the virtually hopeless struggle of the Chinese people, at war for two years. I travelled the country and spent hours watching the clouds, birds, weather conditions; I rapidly concluded that the good thermals had to be as numerous as fish in the Yangtse. I knew every corner of the area around Chungking. The town was a kind of peninsula, surrounded by two mighty rivers, the Yangtse and the Kialing. Thousands of dark roofs, large areas flattened by Japanese bombing, the immediate contrast of great expanses of water, and over it all leaden skies, more oppressive than the strongest sun in Coquilhatville1 or Lake Leopold II in Congo. Where great gliding birds untiringly traced their spirals higher, there had to be powerful thermal currents. Above the town, above the white sandbanks emerging from the river, one saw from morning to ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 348 regularly to eat a good curry), I see my embassy, tiny, great water reservoirs, the beginning of the magnificent Yangtse gorges, innumerable rice fields looking like contour lines, on a relief map. A splendid landscape in miniature, the kind the Chinese love for their gardens. I amuse myself by flying back and forth across the town. I go into crazy spirals opposite an American gunboat and climb in seconds, or so it seems, to 2,000 feet. There I decide to stop and wander about. I am worried about the Japanese who no doubt would come and bomb us and could well send a reconnaissance aircraft, which could easily come and shoot me down ... I am flying in Chinese military colours so I would be in the wrong. Towards 4:00 pm, I feel very tired. I have eaten my lunch, great nervous tension, since I have not flown for more than a year. Moreover, the seat is hard and the parachute is stifling me. I put out the braking flaps in order to descend and I realise that I have to dive at 90 degrees to lose height, so strong are the thermals in mid-river. I amuse myself for five or six minutes in doing turns right above the British Embassy and over the airfield, where I see thousands of Chinese. Finally, I put down at the end of the island in order not to land on the cranes. A perfect landing in 42 degrees of heat after a flight of four hours, 44 minutes. The Asian duration and altitude records were broken at the first attempt. It was the first demonstration flight in China. That evening, the capital's newspapers gave the following news, in Chinese and English: "New glider record registrated here, - Chungkin, April 25 (Central News). By remaining in the air for 4 hours and 44 minutes, M Louis de San, Belgian glider-flyer and honorary director of the Sino-French-Belgian Swiss Cultural Association, set a new endurance record for Asia to day. Flying a glider of the Aeronautical Affairs Commission, de San took off at 11:25 this morning. He gained an altitude of 5,700 feet." M ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 350 1. Louis de San addresses a conference on gliding in China in April 1940. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 2. Louis de San (left) before his record-breaking flight in Chungking. A note, apparently in his hand, on the reverse, dates this as 24 May 1940, suggesting the reference to April in the text may be wrong. 351 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 3. Crowds gather around Louis de San's plane after his flight 352 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 4. Louis de San stands above the Yangtse Gorge near Chungking in 1940 353 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 235 5. Louis de San in Grunau, Silesia, in 1938, where he learned to fly a glider 354 Page 420 Page 421 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 356 7. Louis de San photographed in Syria in 1988 by Paul Bolding ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 357 MORE ON LOUIS DE SAN PAUL BOLDING Young and keen for adventure, Louis de San was 29 in 1939 when he found himself in Chungking as a Belgian diplomat at the court of the nationalist Chinese government as the Japanese seized more and more of the country. Through a family connection I met Louis de San in Syria in 1988 where he had retired and where he later died. I have recently acquired a fascinating letter he wrote to a friend from Chungking and some family photographs. In addition, his own recollection of how he set an Asian gliding altitude and duration record in Chungking in 1940 has been published. The letter describes how he arrived in Hong Kong en route for his new post. 'I knew absolutely nothing about China. It took me three days to find out what was happening, buy supplies (bed linen, underwear, radio, wines and spirits etc) daily lunches and dinners, packing and repacking my stuff, making a thousand demarches, in short an absolute killer of a regime.' He took the 900-tonne steamer Canton for Haiphong, a three-day journey. Hanoi he found ‘a small French provincial town replanted in Asia; the Japanese will find it easy to swallow it when it takes their fancy.' He caught a train to Kunming and waited there for a plane to Chungking. After five days, French fliers got him a place on a flight on a Douglas. 'A lunar landscape with nowhere to land in case of accident; these poor planes are flying 10 or 12 hours a day!' he wrote of the trip. He was immediately put to work by colleagues and the next day was at the French embassy when air raid sirens sounded. 'In a few seconds, everyone was underground in the shelters with admirable discipline; then the wait with a note of anxiety and mystery... one did not know if one would still be alive minutes later... that lasted half an hour. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 358 'Finally a heavy rumbling, very high, and we saw a number of Japanese planes, enough to reduce everything to dust as usual in V formation... then over the first houses of the suburbs they reform into a single line and take their time dropping their bombs. 'A terrible to-do. Chinese anti-aircraft crews firing tracer shells, I shooting out of conviction, even though the enemy was at 3,000 metres... instead of filing into the shelter I remained with two reporters from Havas on a high point to be able to see everything. "We counted 27 Japanese; the characteristic whine of misdirected fire makes us head for the shelter... we see more Japanese pass above us but without dropping anything .... four Chinese planes engage them in combat but without much enthusiasm. One doesn't find much of the heroism here that we have in bucketfuls in similar circumstances. The Chinese is a terrible individualist and doesn't give a damn for the fatherland. + Emerging later, Louis, a Belgian colleague and the French chargé d'affaires, the two journalists and a Chinese, found part of the city ablaze. 'Fire was effectively burning in the area of the barracks of the seamen from a French gunboat; we had to go and see if we could help them,' wrote Louis de San to his friend. They walked towards the river, taking two hours through the rambling suburbs of Chungking. He describes the Yangtse as three or four times as wide as the Scheldt at Antwerp, itself a mighty river. “We managed to borrow a sampan from a European ... we embarked two or three km upstream from where we wanted to cross to because of the strength of the current." 'When we got to the middle of the river, a great Chinese steamer emerged from the darkness without lights, 20 metres away and steaming upstream. We rowers, instead of giving it our best shot, start to throw ourselves into the water. The big ship hits us with full force and extraordinary violence. I dived to avoid the collision but still got a terrible bang on the head. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 360 date was April 25, 1940, but his contemporary annotation of photographs puts the date as May 24. Conditions were perfect and there was no sign of the Japanese fighters which he feared could attack his plane - painted in Chinese military colours. Although at one point he lost altitude badly after dismissing his tow, he soon found the thermals and soared to 5,700 feet and stayed aloft for four hours 44 minutes, an Asian record. He writes: 'I see my embassy, tiny, great water reservoirs, the beginning of the magnificent Yangtse gorges, innumerable rice fields looking like contour lines on a relief map. A splendid landscape in miniature, the kind the Chinese love for their gardens.' He notes at one point flying over the Tutuila 'where I used to go for a good curry.' This U.S. Yangtse patrol boat with a displacement of 395 tons was marooned at Chungking by the Japanese occupation of areas down-river like Hankow. The USS Tutuila was bombed by the Japanese in July 1941, the first U.S. Navy ship damaged by Axis powers in World War Two. It was decommissioned in January 1942 and handed over to the Chinese in March under Lend-Lease and renamed Mei Yuan. One can imagine that in wartime Chungking, Europeans could be assured of a decent meal aboard a U.S. patrol boat that was more or less a permanent fixture at the quayside. Pictures show Louis beside the machine with an air force pilot who was possibly the one who towed him up, and a few others nearby. Afterwards, massive crowds have gathered around Louis's plane to celebrate the record-breaking flight. He was justifiably proud of his achievement and maintained his interest in aviation, flying between subsequent diplomatic posts in a succession of small private planes. Louis de San was transferred to Hong Kong in 1941; on the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor in December, he secured a berth on a freighter which took him and his wife to Ceylon and they passed the war in Africa. Louis de San held various diplomatic posts for Belgium, ending in Damascus in the 1970s. He died in 1995. ================================================================================